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“It’s not that simple,” she started. “Engineers know about maps, right? Well, you only need maps when you’re going somewhere. I found one in my mother’s trousseau when I was seven. I didn’t know what it was until Doc told me. Don’t laugh, but I couldn’t find Rasenna until he showed me the crease where the map was folded. There we were, worn away.” They could hear the river now. “I realized then that being Contessa was something I couldn’t count on; I’d have to be a bandieratoro too. I practiced harder than anyone in the workshop until—”

“—you were the best,” he finished for her.

She blushed, realizing it sounded like pride. “So who taught you?”

“Every engineer studies with the Guild.”

“I meant, was your father an engineer?”

“Yes. I come from a line of men with machine grease instead of blood.”

They reached the river. Giovanni looked at it like a bandieratoro sizing up an opponent.

He caught her staring. “Contessa, you say you’re Scaligeri, not Bardini, but from what I’ve heard, the Morello don’t see a distinction. And I can see why the Doctor might not want them to.” Even as he finished, he realized he’d done it again.

“And I keep reminding you to mind your own business! You think you can drive a wedge between me and Doc? Divide and conquer, eh?”

“I’m not a conqueror—”

“We’ll see,” she said, turning away. “Mind you don’t break your neck getting back.”

Giovanni returned to the tower feeling that his efforts had been disastrous, yet when Vettori heard he’d stood up for the Small People, he started working with gratitude and gusto.

While masons puzzled over Giovanni’s templates, Fabbro engaged in voluminous correspondence, searching Europa for the quantities of metal needed. Giovanni sketched the machines that would allow building to proceed at a Concordian pace. Pedro, working with everyone, was soon making informed suggestions as well as following orders and looking less assistant than engineer.

When the site was finally marked out, the masons were reassured that the buried town center’s silt shroud would be undisturbed. It was better that their ancestors slept ignorant of their children’s poverty.

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

Dogged application of two infinite resources, Concord’s money and Bombelli’s persistence, ensured that supplies arrived the morning before they were scheduled to begin. Giovanni left Tower Vanzetti with his nose buried in various plans, double-checking contingencies and measurements, oblivious to the shadow overhead. As he turned a corner, the shadow dropped in front of him, and he fell back, scattering his plans.

Sofia deftly caught them and handed them back.

“Thank you!” he stammered.

“Sure I’m not a courteous assassin?”

“Should I cry for help?”

“You could try,” said Sofia drily. “Don’t worry, you’re safe with me.”

“But you’re a northsider.”

“And proud. Your point?”

“This isn’t the northside.”

“The truce was extended. And as I keep telling you, I’m Contessa—you might not make distinctions, but Rasenneisi do. Southsiders pay rent to Morello, but they’re still loyal to Scaligeri.” She took his silence for skepticism. “You’ll see!”

Giovanni wondered if all Rasenneisi were as changeable as Etrurian weather; had she forgiven their quarrel or just forgotten it?

“So, big day. Nervous?”

“Why should I be?”

“Oh, little things like half your crew harboring
vendette
against the other half.”

“I get the feeling you don’t want a bridge.”

“Perceptive.”

“The Doctor wants it.”

“Who knows what he wants?”

He heard anger in her voice and assumed he had blundered again, but Sofia was simply tired of being treated like hired help. The Doctor had told her to shadow the engineer after his last visit, but he wouldn’t tell her more.

“Perhaps I’m overlooking something obvious, but surely the river makes life difficult?” he said, choosing his words carefully.

“You should have considered that before sending it,” she shot back.

“That wasn’t me personally—and it was another time. Rasenna was belligerent.”

“Some of us still are.”

“I’ve noticed—but I still don’t understand whether you really object to the bridge or just to Concord.”

“Why not both?”

“You can’t simultaneously object to being divided and to being united—that’s a contradiction!”

“Well, you’re not from around here.”

They were fast approaching Piazza Luna, where Vanzetti was assembling the crew.

“Thank you for your company, Signorina.”

“It’s ‘Contessa’ to you—and don’t thank me, thank the Doc.”

They passed out of the alley’s shadows to find the usually empty piazza thronging with two hundred men, all milling about in front of the town fathers, who were standing stiffly, lined up in the Signoria loggia. On seeing the Contessa, all of the crew, southsiders too, doffed their hats.

“Told you so,” whispered Sofia with a proudly jutting chin as they circled the crowd of tall and shoulder-sturdy men. “What’s so funny?” she added.

“Vettori calls these men the Small People.”

“They call themselves Woolsmen these days, but they know construction; their fathers erected these towers and many more. Can you handle them, Captain?”

“We’ll soon find out. Have a good day, Contessa.”

“Go to hell, Captain,” said Sofia, walking up to the loggia, where the Doctor waited with the rest. She glanced over her shoulder. “But until then, good day to you too.”

Vettori said the men were ready to begin, but Giovanni wanted to address them first.

“Rasenneisi, I’m here today for the same reason you are—to build a bridge.” A room full of politicians had daunted him, but now he spoke with assurance. “Signore Vanzetti is overseer. Signore Bombelli, his second. You’ll have noticed small engines along the surface of the water. They keep pseudonaiades—the buio—from breaking the surface.” He raised his voice so all could hear. “You’ll be safe while working—but fall in and you’ll drown all the same.”

“So put your harness on before you start!” Pedro interrupted.

“My apprentice, Pedro, will be around during the day to check. He can help you read plans if I am elsewhere.”

Fabbro grinned as Vettori failed to hide a big proud smile.

To those with no experience with Concordian machinery, the schedule looked impossible—it was one thing to hear of miracles, another to be expected to perform them—but by the time the engineer had finished speaking, few doubted his conviction. Like the Etruscans before them, Concordians were bridge builders, and that was the reason the Empire had expanded so swiftly despite
the topography of Etruria: a narrow peninsula so river-riddled that some foreign cartographers described it as an archipelago.

A pale, wiry northsider raised his hand. He introduced himself as Little Frog and was dressed the part in an ill-fitting green worker’s tunic, his long legs painted moss-yellow by old hose ventilated with rips and large feet entombed in hand-me-down boots.

Giovanni waited. He had been expecting interruptions.

“No objection to your contraptions, Captain,” Frog said with an amiable drawl, “but we’re starting with a prayer, ain’t we?”

Giovanni could see the boy was not making trouble; the concern was genuine.

“He means a sacrifice,” Vettori whispered. “Tower builders use a pigeon. I brought one, just in case . . .”

Giovanni turned swiftly back to the crowd. “There’ll be no prayers and no sacrifices. This is a modern building site. We make do with stone and iron and each other’s strength.”

Older builders grumbled until another argument broke out. A short, sweaty dour southsider pointed at Fabbro, spit, and announced, “I don’t work for Bardini.”

“You know him?” Fabbro whispered.

Vettori nodded. “Unfortunately.”

“Bandieratoro?”

“No, that’d take salt. Hog Galati is just a lowlife
cafone
whose idea of work is betting on cockfights.” Vettori shook his head angrily and added, “His children eat tripe.”

“Signor, you work for me, not Bardini.”

“Oh,” said Hog with a quick grin. “You work for Morello, then.” His face was framed by black hair that curled into improbable ringlets stiff with grease.

He was answered by the shout “Bardini!” in turn answered by another, “Morello!”

In the loggia’s shade, Quintus Morello chuckled. The Doctor knew he expected the project to founder. “Don’t worry, Gonfaloniere. He’ll rein them in. Or do you want my men to restore order?”

“Try it, Bardini. The truce holds so long as you stay off this bridge.”

Sofia and Gaetano Morello exchanged a glance. She gripped her banner and prayed the engineer would do something, and quickly.

“Listen, please!” Giovanni held up his hands. “I am
no one’s
man. On my site, you are no one’s either.”

Tower owners frowned as one, a rare display of unity.

“Thought this was a groundbreaking,” said Hog, “not a wind breaking.”

But the idea that a man might
not
belong to another was singular enough to restore order.

“I came to build a bridge, that’s all. Your quarrels don’t concern me. Leave them off my site and pick them up at the end of the day. The bridge is no-man’s-land.”

CHAPTER 16

Even before the first day was over Giovanni fully understood how exceptional Pedro was. To ordinary Rasenneisi, Concordian technology was alien. Most inventions are refinements of old technology, but Bernoulli’s were different: not just new concepts but applied in an inspired fashion, and so for the workmen, every little thing was difficult to begin with. Only after grasping this did Giovanni make progress by explaining first principles.

Another temporary bridge was built, this one with chains, less vulnerable to sabotage. The chains doubled as pulleys for a small platform to carry men and materials quickly from one bank to the other. Though it was looking unlikely that the framework of the arches would be completed before the stone arrived, there had been no quarrels, and that, Vettori assured him, constituted success. Giovanni slept without the dark dreams that had plagued his nights since Gubbio.

Next morning he waited patiently but in vain to be ambushed at the same corner. He was walking on disappointedly when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

“They won’t be waiting where you expect them.”

“Contessa! You really think I’m in danger of assassination?”

“I think you’re doing better than the Families expected.”

“Glad to disappoint.”

“I’m glad you didn’t have a blessing.”

“I presume your disagreement with the Sisterhood isn’t theology-based.”

“You really want to know how I broke my arm?”

“Only because you don’t want to tell me,” he said, playing along.

Sofia prided herself on being a good storyteller and for a moment considered how best to begin, though it wasn’t hard. The memory was still raw . . .

The Borselinno brothers were flanking her, and seven more boys brought up the rear. Bardini bandieratori were heroes to northside children, but their mothers pulled them inside when they saw a decina approaching. When flags come out, fights break out: for Rasenneisi women, the maxim was a fact of life.

It was fun to hear the alarm, to see men of unaffiliated towers keep their flags lowered, to see the young bulls nod and make way. But Sofia knew this was a game with purpose. It sent a simple message to every family, affiliated or not: rent due.

The Bardini owned towers, though not nearly as many as the Morello, but this was different: this was rent of the streets, and the sight of a Bardini decina on parade was a reminder of who owned them. The only thing spoiling the fun was knowing this was business the Doc wanted her involved in.

“How’s that?” Giovanni broke in.

Sofia looked cross at the interruption. “He doesn’t want me fighting in an
unofficial
capacity. The Borselinno weren’t there to protect me—they were to make sure I didn’t exceed orders.”

“Which were what? Just to be seen?”

“Shut up and let me tell the story! The Borselinno turned on their heels at the sight of the Baptistery, but I kept walking.”

“They didn’t notice you were gone?”

“They were concentrating so hard on their war stories, I’m surprised they found their way home. Now,
zitto
!”

The Baptistery, a squat octagonal gate tower, guarded the cloister. It was richer in design and ornament than any tower, but the real difference was that its large green doors were always open. Some might call it hospitable. To Rasenneisi it was provocative.

She steeled herself and entered the airy darkness that was pierced only by the light entering the door behind the central baptismal font. She was immediately aware of the scent of incense and something else—more elusive, as if time beat with a slower rhythm here, each second dragging out a little longer. Such peace was strange to Sofia.

The Doc rarely spoke of old Rasenna, but the other survivors of his generation never tired of telling tales of former glories, such as the Cathedral bell that tolled then for fish and now for buio. Far older than the Cathedral, the Baptistery had been built by Rasenna’s founders, the Etruscans or Trojans, whichever lie one chose to believe.

She hadn’t come to admire the iconography, but as she let her eyes adjust to the darkness, they fell upon one treasure and then another. From the middle of the vaulted ceiling an ornate Herod’s Sword hung tip down, reflecting darkly in the Holy Water of the font, where infants became the Innocents murdered with the Christ, if one so chose to believe. Sofia had put such things behind her, but even so she dipped her hand in and made the Sign of the Sword before going into the small courtyard.

As incense gently surrendered to the scent of living lilies, silence yielded to doves cooing. In the center of the garden, an old woman was quietly pruning an orange tree.

Sofia leaned her flag against the door’s arch and strode over. “Reverend Mother, please forgive this intrusion.”

The nun, who evidently had not heard Sofia’s approach, dropped her shears in shock, and they stuck in the ground beside her sandals. “My child,” she exclaimed, “I
dreamed
you would come this very hour.”

Suppressing her smile, Sofia nodded solemnly.

The nun gestured to a small table as evidence. “I had a novice prepare refreshments for us. Would you like a glass of water,
amore
?” said the old lady, shuffling over.

Sofia glanced up at the surrounding windows, but they were empty. Their privacy was complete. “No, thank you. I’ve come to ask your advice.”

“’Course you would. Lovely water. Just the thing. Here you go, drink up.”

Smiling, Sofia reached to take the glass—then punched her in the face.

“You
what
?”

“I punched her in the face,” said Sofia.

“That’s what I thought you said.”

“Just wait till you hear what happened next . . .”

The old lady staggered back, dropping the glass, and Sofia followed up with a low sweeping kick. The nun crashed to the ground; at the same moment, the glass shattered.

“Didn’t
dream
of that, huh?” Sofia leaped back. “Bardini
own
the northside.
Everybody
has to pay. Sisters too.” Her heart was pounding. This would show Doc—and whoever listened to him—that she didn’t need baby-sitting.

Flat on her back, the nun chuckled. She poked a finger into her jaw, then spit out a tooth. “Is that it?”

“Don’t get up!” Sofia said, trying not to sound worried.

“I assume this visit is unofficial. I don’t remember the Doc being
that
stupid.”

It was all wrong: that punch would have knocked out any bandieratoro, but the nun was perfectly lucid.

Sofia grabbed the bottle and smashed it against the table. “I’m warning you!”

“Let’s see what you’ve got, then.” The nun twisted her legs, pivoting on her back, then sprang up, and before Sofia could move, the bottle was knocked from her grip with a quick, accurate kick. She backed away hastily, but the old lady moved faster, pirouetting lightly on her feet, and before Sofia could react, she’d been punched in the stomach once, twice, three times. They only felt like taps, yet her whole body convulsed—and they were impossible to block, because it was impossible to see the next one coming. Sofia realized that the nun was using her sleeves just as a bandieratoro used his banner: to conceal, to distract.

Sofia let herself fall backward. Her hands touched the ground as her legs left it.

The nun, seeing her somersaulting toward the door, sprang weightlessly into the air. Sofia snatched her flag away a second before the nun’s masonry-shattering kick landed. Panicked birds flew into the sky.

She defended herself, but it was hopeless; the nun patiently advanced with sweeping blows that passed by her face, closer and closer, her sharp nails just in front of her exposed throat. She was toying with her, studying her technique exactly the way the Doc tested the workshop novices. Even if she was fast enough, the nun was too close to let her use her flag. With the next blow, Sofia let herself fall and roll.

“You’re too old to fight like a girl,” the nun said patronizingly.

Sofia knew she’d been overconfident; the blood on her tongue was evidence of that. A feather drifted by her face. She glanced up at the courtyard roof and leaped. For a moment, it felt possible—then a claw gripped her ankle.

“Enough of this nonsense,” said the nun, pulling her down. “It’s time for my nap.” She grabbed Sofia’s wrist gently and turned it. Sofia winced and dropped her flag. She shot a knee up, but the nun tilted her body away. Sofia leaned back too, grabbing the fallen shears and—

“Enough, I said!” and the nun slapped the shears out of her hands. Calmly, with an almost leisurely pace, she stepped behind Sofia, still holding her wrist, and pushed on the elbow until—

“Ahhh!”

She heard cooing in the warm, numb darkness—then, like a fire catching alight, pain that wrenched her eyes open.

The old nun smiled down at her. “Ah, you’re back. I was just thinking how you’ve grown, Sofia, since the day I baptized you.”

She pulled her up. “Well, you know the way now. The door is always open,” she said, and returned to pruning, “Come back if you need more advice.”

“And that was over a month ago,” Sofia finished her story, finding herself a little shaken reliving it. “The Doc set my arm, said it’ll be good as new when it heals. He hates the Sisterhood more than me, but the nuns do everything beautifully, he said, even bone breaking.”

“Wasn’t he angry?” said Giovanni, less surprised at the story than at the catch in her normally confident voice.

“He didn’t give me the lecture I was expecting, just shook his head and scratched his chin a lot. He’s like that, never tells you what he’s thinking. And it’s funny, up till that day, I thought he was Rasenna’s best fighter.”

Giovanni shook his head. “Is that true, that she named you?”

“How do I know? Even if it is, how could that old
zoccola
recognize me? The Sisterhood has acted like the rest of Rasenna doesn’t exist for years.”

“Maybe she knew you were coming, like she said.”

“And let me get the first one in? Aren’t engineers supposed to be rational? Or did you miss that day in school?”

“Rationality means following evidence wherever it leads.”

They walked on in silence until Sofia said, “You think I got what I deserved.”

Giovanni became engrossed in his plans.

“Tell me. I won’t get mad.”

“Do you do that type of thing, threaten people for the Doctor, often?”

Forgetting her promise, Sofia snapped, “That’s the natural order of things, isn’t it? Concord doesn’t use love poetry to wrest tribute from bankrupt towns, does it?”

“That doesn’t make it right. Will the Small People accept you as Contessa?”

“You saw yesterday what they think of me. Besides, I don’t need permission; it’s my right. You might have broken your nobles’ banners, but we still carry ours. Certain families are born to rule, others to follow. That’s the way it is.”

“Why? Has it proved efficient?”

“This isn’t Concord; we don’t aspire to efficiency. Rasenna’s problem is the Morello. If they showed proper respect to Scaligeri—”

“What do the Scaligeri have to do with it? The Morello quarrel’s with the Bardini—”

“—and Doc’s loyal to the Scaligeri. I don’t like what you’re implying. Concord’s no different.”

“Since the engineers took over, our nobles don’t—”

“Your Re-Formation was the same thing that’s been happening in Rasenna for the past decade: a power struggle. The engineers gelded the old aristocracy, and now
they’re
the aristocracy.”

“You misunderstand: the Guild has no institutionalized privilege. Promotion and advancement are based on merit.”

“Didn’t you say you came from an engineering family?”

“Of course, some families have an aptitude—”

“—just as previously the criteria were martial skills. All that’s changed is the criteria for exclusion. Concord, Rasenna, wherever: there’s still one group who rule and Small People who serve.”

They had come to Piazza Luna, and Giovanni did something she hadn’t expected: he agreed. Taken aback, she became almost conciliatory. “Don’t get me wrong—I don’t object to it here or there. Like I said, it’s natural. Certain people are born with a higher destiny.”

“You believe that?”

“I do. The only thing I disagree with Doc about is how he takes the long way around. When I’m in charge, the Morello—or anyone who gets in my way—had better watch out!”

They parted as before:

“Have a good day, Contessa.”

“Go to hell, Captain.”

Sofia stopped midway over the chain bridge to look at the river underneath. A permanent bridge still seemed as impossible as a tower built on clouds, but when she looked back and studied the man who was committed to building it, she knew that impossible or not, he would do it.

In Piazza Luna, a shantytown of workshops for carpenters, masons, and smiths had sprung up overnight.

The workmen were quick studies, and Giovanni was surprised at their readiness to adopt the labor-saving devices other Etrurian towns had shunned. Gradually he began to realize the important difference: no other town had been so completely defeated as Rasenna. Traditional techniques were cause for shame, not pride.

The first week’s progress was impressive. Pile-driven stakes outlined cofferdams where abutments would be planted even deeper for stability. He envisaged a structure with a long central arch, elegantly bracketed with two lower and shorter arches, a subtle slope rising from each bank.

Giovanni was everywhere, solving technical problems almost before they arose. He knew it was vital to have the cofferdams drained before the spring rains, and he knew the men would test each other, so whenever confrontation came, he did not shy away but stood there, arms crossed and head slightly lowered as he listened to both parties, and then decided matters with certainty. He did not draw his authority from distant Concord or from the ever-watching Signoria. It came from another place.

And then came a problem engineering could not solve.

“This side, it’s lagging. Why?”

Vettori was evasive, but by now Giovanni recognized the resignation with which Rasenneisi met certain realities.